"Bend down your head, Baldo!" he would order.

And Baldo, the biggest bull, in the middle of the front line, would
bend down his head, and Gulab would climb up by one of the horns,
scramble up Baldo's neck, and sit down on his back.

"March!" Gulab would order--and the whole herd would march.

Now, a few miles away there was a grand palace. In the palace was a
little Prince, whose father was a Rajah--that is, a kind of king. The
little Prince's birthday was coming, and his father ordered grand
feasts for many days.

The Rajah had six English friends, who were quite big men. The
Englishmen were very fond of tiger hunting, so the Rajah wanted to
order a tiger hunt for them. But it is not easy to have a tiger hunt
just when you want to have it. Why not? Because the tiger will _not_
come out and be hunted just when you want him to. He would rather stay
in his den.

So for a few days no one heard of a tiger prowling about. Then
suddenly a strange piece of news came from that village where Gulab
lived. It happened in this way:

One day Gulab took out the buffaloes to graze and to wallow. The
buffaloes lay down in the shallow water for a while, and Gulab
splashed about or tumbled in the mud near them. Then he got tired of
doing that, and came out on the bank and played about there for a
while.

Suddenly he heard a strange sound. It was one of the buffaloes, who
had stood up in the water and was giving a low, deep bellow. Two or
three other buffaloes stood up also, and gave a low, deep bellow. Then
all at once the whole lot of them began to come out of the water.

Gulab stopped in his play to see what was wrong. But he could see
nothing.

"What's the matter, Baldo?" he asked. "What's wrong, Chando?"

But the two biggest bulls scrambled up the bank, and came rushing
toward the boy. All the other bulls came also, and some went past him
on the right side, and some went past him on the left side. Then
suddenly Gulab knew what it all meant!

A snarl--a growl--a roar, he heard. A flash of yellow leaped out of
the jungle, and came toward him with a huge jump. It was a tiger!

But already the buffaloes were making a ring around Gulab. Then he
knew what had happened. The tiger had seen him from the jungle beyond,
and had been trying to creep up to him quietly from thicket to
thicket. But the buffaloes had _smelled_ the tiger in time, and had
run out of the pond to save Gulab. And now they had made a ring around
him.